


What Friends Do

by hardtostarboard



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Alternate Universe, Cross-Canon, Drinking & Talking, Friendship, Gen, Inspired by Roleplay/Roleplay Adaptation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-04
Updated: 2016-08-04
Packaged: 2018-07-29 08:40:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7677616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hardtostarboard/pseuds/hardtostarboard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He only stepped out into the gardens to clear his head, but the commander (or was it former commander, now? Sometimes he wondered) quickly stumbled upon a familiar figure taking his own time outside of the mansion. One to whom he did not need to announce his presence because he knew that he had already been sensed - heard, smelled, perhaps even seen - long before he noticed that the other person was there at all. This was someone he had first branded a demon, something unnatural and evil, someone who now smiled at him and tilted the bottle in his hand in his direction to offer him a drink.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Friends Do

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheArtsDemon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheArtsDemon/gifts).



> Written for Mouette.
> 
> Prompt: Night Owls.  
> Characters: Cullen Rutherford, Emiel Regis.  
> Setting: entranceway.dreamwidth.org

He only stepped out into the gardens to clear his head, but the commander (or was it former commander, now? Sometimes he wondered) quickly stumbled upon a familiar figure taking his own time outside of the mansion. One to whom he did not need to announce his presence because he knew that he had already been sensed - heard, smelled, perhaps even seen - long before he noticed that the other person was there at all. This was someone he had first branded a demon, something unnatural and evil, someone who now smiled at him and tilted the bottle in his hand in his direction to offer him a drink.  
  
Emiel Regis.  
  
"I cannot say that I would have expected to see you out so late, Cullen," the vampire said, shifting along the bench to give the man some room. Cullen took the bottle without prompting and sniffed it carefully first, identifying it as the mandrake moonshine that he so often found Regis drinking. He took a small sip, and it scorched its way down to his stomach as he held back the urge to cough. "But if I am to have company, yours is more than acceptable."  
  
"Hm... thank you," Cullen murmured in response, awkward for reasons he couldn't put words to, and yet ones which had become increasingly frequent as he had come to know Regis better.  
  
He was less unnerving in the dark. Daylight made the vampire's lack of a shadow harshly visible and highlighted so many other things about him that gave him a distinct air of the uncanny. When night fell, it was far less obvious, yet Cullen found himself ashamed that he felt such a way about someone who, even from the very start when he had been suspicious and unfriendly, had never been anything but courteous. Now, when Regis was close by or made brief contact against his arm, Cullen did not shy away or feel the itch in his sword-hand as it wished for a hilt. When he smiled widely enough to show his teeth, the commander didn't find himself unsettled by their obvious sharpness. When he began to speak of things that interested or intrigued him, and enthusiasm pulled his usually languid frame into animation, it was not subconsciously taken as a potential threat.  
  
"A copper for those thoughts of yours? Though you look so deep in them I would wager you need a buoy to lift you out."  
  
"I'm sorry, what?" Regis was looking at him, with the patient and expectant smile of one who is waiting for a question to be answered. With some chagrin, Cullen realised that he hadn't heard a word. "I.. beg your pardon."  
  
"I asked what brings you out. I do not often see anyone at this kind of hour."  
  
Cullen hesitated, then chuckled uncomfortably, rubbing one hand around the back of his neck. He couldn't tell the vampire what had distracted him so just then - it might have been insulting - but it had little to do with what had prompted him to come outside. "I.. spoke of the Templars, didn't I?" he asked. Regis nodded. "Hm. Templars utilise a mineral known as lyrium to give them their abilities. I stopped taking it some time ago, but..."  
  
"Ah," said Regis, and Cullen knew he understood. There was a comfort in that, somehow. In stops and starts, from short and brusque talks to longer, deeper conversations they had found many levels on which they understood one another and could relate despite the span of years and different worlds separating them. He knew already about the vampire's more sordid, indulgent past, something that he had not been shy in divulging not long after he had been assured that Cullen would in fact _not_ try to kill him simply for existing, but he had never really spoken much about himself. The vampire didn't seem to mind, but it felt unfair, somehow. They both knew how it was to feel the claws of an addiction as they tried desperately to escape it.  
  
They sat in silence then and passed the bottle of moonshine between them, looking out over the gardens with the imposing mansion looming up behind them. He could feel himself growing fuzzy around the edges, his thoughts blurring into one another, and the next time Regis offered him the bottle he refused with a small wave of one hand.  
  
"If I drink any more I won't make it back to my rooms," he said, a chuckle wrapping around the words and soaking through them to knit the admission with uncommon good humour. Regis huffed out a laugh through his nose and smiled, nudging the bottle against Cullen's hand again.  
  
"I'll make sure that you are returned safely to your quarters. Trust me."  
  
There, Cullen hesitated. He felt something in his chest tighten and his mouth turned dry. _Trust me_ , said the vampire, the blood-drinking and entirely unnatural creature (self-proclaimed _monster_ on more than one occasion) who had, somehow, become a friend. It was a noisy clash between what he knew Regis to be capable of, what he knew vampires as a species could be capable of, and how he had come to know this one individual and he wondered, as his thoughts muddled through the haze in his mind, if he could trust a demon as easily if they spent enough time together. He thought of Cole, backtracked, and looked up to find Regis giving him that patient expression again.  
  
"... I do," he admitted, and he took the bottle.  
  
There was only a little left and Cullen drained it, his throat long since numbed from any risk of coughing by the harshness of the liquor. He placed the bottle down by his feet with unexpected precision, only to find his head swimming as he straightened up again. He felt a hand on his shoulder, one on his arm, carefully steadying him and pushed down the internal shudder prompted by focusing on the sharp fingernails on Regis' hands. There was a vague awareness of a kind voice saying 'I think you might have had enough', and he nodded clumsily, pulled to his feet without protest. An arm was firm around his waist, his arm pulled across narrow shoulders and everything smelled of the herbal, earthy scent that always followed Regis around. He blinked hard, tried to focus, but the path swam treacherously in front of him and the only stable thing to hold on to was his companion.  
  
Regis, for his part, found it all too amusing. He chuckled and made gentle jokes at Cullen's expense as he assisted the inebriated human back to his rooms, navigating the stairs an interesting experience that neither of them could be too keen to repeat. Either Regis' tolerance for alcohol vastly outstripped his, or he was simply better at being drunk.  
  
"I must apologise for hijacking your night," Regis said, all but hauling the commander up the final step they would have to conquer before it was a matter of stumbling up the corridor and working out how to unlock the door. Cullen shook his head and immediately wished he hadn't, then tried the gesture again more tentatively.  
  
"I.. think I would have rather had you in it than not," he replied. Regis smiled, clearly touched, and he went on. "You're a good... a good friend. I misjudged you in the beginning."  
  
"I forgive you," was the immediate response, and the commander felt his face flush in a way that had nothing to do with his level of inebriation. "I believe that's what friends do."


End file.
